


Dead End

by manicalicorn (AnglophilicSins)



Category: Sdorica (Video Games)
Genre: Anal Sex, Bottom Morris, Drunk Sex, Extremely Dubious Consent, Heavy Angst, M/M, Not Beta Read, Pining Morris Dietrich, Possibly Unrequited Love, Top Charle, Vomiting, some backstory theorising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:46:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnglophilicSins/pseuds/manicalicorn
Summary: “My mind must’ve wandered.”“Yours too?” Charle laughs, “perhaps this is a sign that we ought to kick back and relax for the night.”Morris doesn't like lying, not really. But at the end of the day, sometimes lying is just survival.
Relationships: Charle Ceres/Morris Dietrich
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Dead End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HAL_berd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HAL_berd/gifts), [Entrophy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entrophy/gifts).



> This was written as a request from the lovely HAL_berd and Entrophy! Thank you so much for the prompt, sorry for how late this is. Regardless, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> _Prompt: “Morris and Charle are out drinking together. Charle ends up getting smashed, and it turns out he’s a rather touchy drunk...Morris, partially trying to drink away his crush, can’t take it when his research partner starts...flirting with him?”_

There was a certain beauty, an undeniable draw, to the shapes and forms of runework. Even as a child, _(hands shivering, stomach growling; to burn or eat his last candle?)_ Morris has always felt the inexplicable pull, the fascination unending, to every stroke, to each character. To the ways in which the circles held and drew in power, the ways in which the runes hummed and sang with meaning, the ways that each and every curve and line — a million disparate, even opposing, elements — was calculated to stand together in breathtaking harmony.

A sweeping curve here, for stability. A sixty degree line here, for magnitude; and a thirty degree one here, for direction. Even the gentle scratching of his quill against the parchment was a special, exquisite music.

Morris glances up, and his eyes naturally land on his companion, sitting across him, similarly lost in the dance of runework under his quill.

Professor Charle Ceres is a strange man, for as much as he consorts without discrimination with people of negligible intellect, still his mind is sharper sometimes than even Morris’ own. Yes, the man’s mind is as brilliant as his smiles are easy, his heart as soft as his convictions are steady.

Charle once said to Morris that he thought Morris a strange person, someone that he never quite knew what to make of, and Morris (at the time) had merely scoffed and called him silly. The truth is that Morris had been — still is, really — equally bewildered, perhaps even more so, by the confounding mystery and unending contradictions of one Charle Ceres.

See here, the sweeping curve of his jaw, gentle and strong in equal measure. Here, the angle of his nose, firm and proud, yet highlighting the kindness of his eyes. And this also, the lines of those eyes, the piercing intelligence in them only accentuating the softness of his gaze, even if these days it’s been tainted somewhat by the heaviness of grief. Under Morris’ hand, his quill scratches, scratches…

“Morris?”

He starts, near jumping in his seat. Instinctively his hand crushes the half-formed sketch on the page, ripping it straight off its bindings, and wads it into a tiny ball of crumpled paper before its subject can glimpse his likeness.

“Another dead end, huh?” Charle says, his smile sympathetic. They’ve had very many of those, after all, in this damnable quest of Charle’s for the nigh impossible.

“Yeah.”

“May I see?” Charle inquires, extending a hand, “maybe there’s something in it we can use?”

Morris instead flicks the crumpled ball backwards over his shoulder, and without turning to look, swiftly lashes it with his runic threads, snapping his fingers to detonate it. The parchment is incinerated cleanly in an instant, nothing left but sizzling ashes that obediently carry themselves to be deposited in the low-burning fireplace.

“Don’t bother, it was utterly rubbish,” he lies, straight-faced, “My mind must’ve wandered.”

“Yours too?” Charle laughs, “perhaps this is a sign that we ought to kick back and relax for the night.”

Morris’ brow climbs to his hairline; it was rare indeed that Charle should be the one to suggest a break. More often than not, it was Morris who had to drag the older man, kicking and screaming like a brat, out of the lab they shared to grab even a single bite to eat. Yet here he was, suggesting they end their night early.

Of course, far be it from him to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Let’s,” Morris agrees, snapping his book shut with finality and standing to stretch. He sighs in contentment as he feels his spine pop, breathes a laugh under his breath as he hears echoing pops from across their shared table.

He makes sure that he’s already snatched his coat up and halfway out the door before he turns back to Charle to ask, “what did you have in mind?”

As expected, a moment of doubt flickers in amber eyes, and Charle glances back to their work-

“Oi, Charle,” Morris clicks his tongue, taking another meaningful step out the door.

The man visibly shakes himself, then he slaps himself on his cheeks, twice. At last, he throws his coat on, stepping past Morris through the door.

“Apologies,” he says, warm and low, his chest (rumbling just a little with his quiet baritone) brushing lightly against Morris’ shoulder as he maneuvers around him in the cramped corner.

Morris does his best to ignore the closeness of his smooth voice as he locks the door, “you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Right,” he perks up, backing up a little bit and starting down the hallway (and Morris breathes a little easier), “I was actually thinking about trying out this new bar I’ve heard about. It’s just on the fringe of the Desert Bazaar.”

“A bar?” Morris asks, his skeptical brow rising once again, “didn’t take you for the drinking type, Ceres.”

A little twinkle enters those golden eyes, and Morris is proud of the control he maintains over his feet at the sight of it.

“Perhaps not, but I’ve heard that you have a… shall we say, _refined_ palate when it comes to beverages of an alcoholic nature.”

Groaning, Morris lengthens his stride to fall in step with the other man, “who the fuck told you that? It was Damien, wasn’t it? I swear to god-”

Charle laughs, “he told me that you’d had quite a number of choice words for him and his selection of wine at the last faculty meeting.”

“It was grape juice,” Morris states blandly, “that chimp served grape juice. With _syrup_. You were there; you mean to tell me that that concoction would, under any circumstances, qualify as wine?”

“Well, wine _is_ fermented grape juice,” Charle shrugs nonchalantly, twitching lips betraying exactly how much he knows this is pissing his companion off.

He humours Charle with a look of mute, scandalized horror, then shakes his head and grabs the man’s arm, yanking him down the hall. “Can’t believe you,” he mumbles, a smile of his own creeping onto his lips, “absolutely ridiculous statement of profound ignorance. I’d’ve renounced knowing you right here, right now, if you weren’t…”

“If I weren’t… what, Morris?”

Morris flicks his eyes back, back to Charle’s open, gormless expression of simple curiosity. The faint traces of a laugh lingering in his cheeks, on his lips. A vague ink stain on the collar of his white coat when he’d snatched it up earlier. The warmth and sturdiness of his arm in Morris’ grasp.

He lets go of Charle’s arm in favour of tucking his hands into his coat pockets, and returns his gaze forward.

“Nevermind.”

* * *

“This one isn’t actually half bad,” Morris decided, doing his level best to keep from spilling his drink as he carefully guided the cup back to the table.

“Another good one!” Charle cheered beside him. The man laughed, flinging his whole body against Morris and throwing an arm around his shoulders, “Y’see Morris? I toldja this place was good.”

“...yeah yeah,” he grumbled, trying to wiggle out from under the larger man’s weight as he finally gave up on placing the cup on the table. He cradled it closer to himself instead, letting the wafting aroma of the vintage bleed up into his nose and head, till all he could smell was grape and yeast and the fifteen year pine undertones.

It didn’t work.

The sharp musk of parchment and wood and long hours in the library was stronger still, the somehow ever-present scent of grass and summer rain, and the sharp, fizzy scent of runic electricity flooding his lungs with every breath he took. Warmer still than the alcohol in his belly was the weight against his side, smoother than the slide of wine down his throat were the tones of easy laughter, heavier than the wine’s fruity tang were the breaths against his ear.

Morris took another swig of his drink, no longer caring to carefully examine the flavours in favour of just pumping the alcohol into his system. Who knew Charle Ceres was such a clingy drunk? Certainly not Morris, and he wasn’t equipped to deal with eighty kilograms of an extremely fit, smooth-jawed, shining-eyed drunken professor on top of him with his broad, calloused hands roaming-

_No, stop that. Right now._

“Oh, you’re out? Me too! Barkeep!” Charle called, throwing a hand up with two fingers outstretched at the proprietor, “two more’f the same, please’n thanks!” Then the man’s whole body sagged back down onto his black-cloaked companion, giggling as he dragged the smaller man into a hug.

“You sure you can keep drinking, Charle?” Morris asked, struggling in vain to shove the solid wall of muscle that formed Charle’s chest off his face.

Morris himself wasn’t weak, by any means, but he was still much smaller in build — not just height — than Charle Ceres: an insane menace of a man who’d, for _leisure_ , spent many years of his youth at god-knows-where for days at a time, getting buff from doing god-knows-what.

(Morris was reasonably certain that the rumours that Charle had actually travelled to each and every corner of Vendacti and studied all known forms of martial arts therein were rubbish, but the man in question himself refused to either confirm nor deny them.)

Presently, of course, his own inebriation wasn’t helping his case in the slightest, as he squinted at the wavering form of the other professor, “I’m preeetty sure you’re completely smashed.”

“Yeeeeaaaah, y’could say I’m havin’ a _smashing_ good time!” then he drew back just enough to toss out a horrid, cheesy wink, somehow still looking absolutely stunning while doing so.

Morris didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

“Still want those merlots, sirs?” The proprietor asked as he came back around to peek into their booth, a smirk creeping up onto his weathered face at the sight of them.

“Yessssss,” Charle beamed, at the same time that Morris sighed out a tired, “‘course not.”

“Need help with Mister Huggy Bear there, then?” he asked as Morris attempted to stand and haul his parasite up with him.

He contemplated declining for all of half a second before Charle yanked on his neck and nearly choked him out.

“Just… just out the door, please.”

“Not a problem, boss.”

* * *

“An’ then he said, he said - can you believe it - he said, _Y’ only call people pretty ‘n… ‘n cute b’cause they’re small,_ and I mean, what’s wrong with that, right? I ‘on’t think there’s anythin’ wrong with bein’ a small guy, ‘m not that big either. I’m… ‘m average?...ish-ish. I think... Th’was a census ‘bout it once, or sum’n...”

Right, so as it turns out, not only was Charle a clingy drunk, but he was apparently also an incredibly verbose drunk, a fact Morris had become well-acquainted with over the short trip.

(He maintains that Applied Magic is a largely pathetic discipline, but _occasionally_ its _best_ practitioners - like Charle - could _sometimes_ come up with stuff that was niftier than their usual toys - like that teleporter between the Desert Bazaar and the Rune Academy. And he isn’t fool enough to not be grateful for such creations, especially at a time like this.)

“Not objectively, I guess, but y’re fuckin’ heavy as dead weight at the moment,” Morris huffs as they stumble through the dark corridors, adjusting Charle again to avoid the way that the older man leaned in in an attempt to nuzzle at his (far too exposed) neck.

_Come on, Dietrich, just a couple more steps and you can drop this burden off in his room and never again have to think about how warm his body is pressing firmly up against-_

_No. Shut up, brain._

“So, I’m like, tryinggggguh to get… t’get Ev’rett t’ like, understand? You know? That I didn’t mean it as a _bad_ thing either, and that I was uh… like, he’s pretty. I like… I like pretty, y’know? Boys are… boys’re pretty. I really like boys.”

Morris pursed his lips, trying not to grind his teeth too harshly as he fought down the instinctual vitriol that threatened to spill from his tongue. He didn’t know who this fucking yahoo Everett-from-Charle’s-old-graduate-cohort was, but all Morris knew was that he was objectively a dullard whom he’d very much like to string up and set on fire.

“Yes, yes, you’re incredibly gay. We knew that, Charle.”

Charle went quiet at that, and for the briefest of moments Morris felt the weight at his side ease off, just a tad.

“Charle?” Morris asked, halting to peer at Charle’s expression in the dark.

“Do you… y’don’t have a problem with that, right? Me bein’ gay?”

Oh for the love of-

“Of course not, you dumbass,” looking at Charle’s expression was a mistake. Fuck that miserable kicked puppy look, what the hell, “I like y- men too; it’d be beyond ridiculous f’me to have a problem with it.”

Why did he say that. There was literally no reason to disclose any of that.

“B-b’sides! It’s not like anyone at all here has a problem with stuff like that… What kind of weird… hog-brained… bonono… bombini… banana d’you think I am?”

Charle giggled, and then his full weight came crashing back down against Morris’ side, forcing him to stagger into the wall.

“‘m glad,” Charle slurred, low and deep into his ear, making a shiver race up Morris’ spine, “that’s very… very good t’hear…”

“Yeah, well-” Morris started, but gasped when he felt broad, warm hands trailing firmly down his belly.

He could feel a smirk, curling teasingly against his neck, as those firm hands stopped just shy of his belt, then trailed themselves up, skimming over his pectorals, before sliding back down against his flank.

Charle either didn’t notice or care about the way that Morris’ breaths kept hitching, the way shivers kept racing through his body, the heat that was rushing under his skin — he was far too drunk for that. Morris was the more sober one here, clearly, and as such he had a responsibility to-

“You’re pretty, too. God, you’re… you’re so, so pretty,” Charle murmured against the skin of his neck, just under the band of his choker, hands squeezing the dip in his waist, “y’feel so good ‘nder my hands…”

“Ch-Charle, w-wait…” he could barely hear himself think over the pounding of his heart in his ears, couldn’t hear the way his voice cracked into a whimper on Charle’s name, but he had to… he had a responsibility to…

Then Charle stepped in closer, crowding him against the wall, and there was something unmistakably hard pressing up against the cleft of his ass.

“Bet you’ll look even prettier screamin’ my name.”

_Fuck._

Morris spun in his arms, a low growl he barely even registered as coming from his own throat rumbling into the heated air between them. His hands were stinging, quivering with need as he pulled at and rubbed over Charle’s heavy layers in turns, dropping his head onto Charle’s shoulder, mouthing helplessly at the fabric. He wanted to… he wanted… he _wanted_ , so, so much, he hardly knew where to start. All he knew was that he needed more, needed to get closer. He whined, tossing his head back as he sank into the sensations of Charle’s lips and teeth assaulting his neck.

When Charle’s hands finally, _finally_ slipped down past his waistband, Morris bucked into the touch and _keened_ , long and high, a gasping wail of a sound as his knees began to buckle. And Charle chuckled, turning his attentions away from Morris’ neck to instead catch his lips.

The both of them then, allowed the wall to hold them, as they cast moans and curses and desperate pleas past each others’ lips. Morris took, he drank like a fish, every gasp of breath that Charle would, could give. He took and he took and he took until some distant part of him worried that Charle could give no more.

“Bed,” Charle broke away at last, gasping and heaving for breath. Yet soon he was ducking his head back down again, teeth breaking pale skin as he marked Morris feverishly, desperately.

Morris cried out — from ecstasy, from pain, perhaps both — panting curses to the ceiling.

“You gotta - hah - get off me - ngh! - first,” he said as his hands came up to claw at the back of Charle’s robes, drawing him closer, holding him tighter.

“Fuck...” Charle snarled.

Then with hardly a moment’s notice, Morris found his feet swept clean off the ground. He gasped, instinctually wrapping his legs around the man before him, making them both groan as their crotches rubbed together through their clothes.

They find their way into Charle’s rooms eventually, stumbling through every step as Morris attempted to climb Charle like a tree and Charle in turn trying to somehow have enough hands to both keep Morris hoisted up and to run greedily over his body. It takes longer than it should till they’re spilling through the door, which may or may not have swung shut behind them. Such trivial details are hardly important; nothing is, in the face of the pressing urgency growing in their trousers.

“Why d’we have to wear so many fucking layers,” Charle growled, shucking them feverishly off his person in between bites to Morris’ exposed flesh. Morris barely has a chance to respond before he’s tossed onto the sheets, his breath knocked out of him.

The sheets… Charle’s bed.

“Shit,” he gasped, as Charle, now stripped to his underclothes, crawls over him, dark amber eyes glinting with lust, “Charle, stop. We can’t-”

“Can’t what?” those broad hands are on Morris’ clothes now, peeling them from his skin layer by layer with a deftness that belied his inebriation. Then a grin bloomed on his handsome face, childish in its glee, as Morris’ pale stomach was finally revealed to him.

His assault on Morris’ stomach began immediately, and Morris couldn’t help but squirm and ~~shriek~~ yell as his tongue and lips tickled at the sensitive flesh. Charle’s lips curving in a satisfied smirk as a giggle was forced from Morris’ lips, his hands trailing lower till they slipped his trousers and pants from his legs.

The blast of cool night air against his suddenly exposed cock shocked Morris from his revelry, and he gasped, scampering out from under Charle’s slack grip. When Charle chased him up the bed, he leapt from it, stumbling on uncoordinated limbs into a sprawl over Charle, pinning the older man’s endeavouring hands by his head.

“I’m serious, Charle,” he panted, the strange manoeuvre and the largeness of the other man struggling under his grip winding him, “we shouldn’t do this.”

“Why not? Are you married?” Charle whined, sounding far too young for his age. Then he calmed in his struggles, only to rake his eyes so lewdly over Morris’ exposed body that Morris felt his already over-heated skin burning impossibly hotter from the attention, “Though I guess that wouldn’t surprise me, you’re fuckin’ _gorgeous_.”

“God, do you ever shut up?” the younger hissed, finding it hard to maintain eye contact when his whole face felt like it was on fire. And when the hell did nice, polite, _proper_ Charle cuss so much?

“I can use my mouth for other, better things,” he shot back immediately with a sleazy wink.

_What the hell?_

He was thrown for long enough that Charle freed his wrists, and his hands shot swiftly to Morris’ naked hips, ramming him down against his still-clothed erection. They both groaned in mutual ecstasy, and Morris shuddered and collapsed against the broad expanse of Charle’s chest, moaning into the firmness of his muscles.

When the hell had he taken off his shirt?

“Ugh, fuck-” Charle cursed ( _again,_ some hazy distant part of Morris’ mind noted) as his hips continued to grind up against Morris’ arse in a juttering rhythm, his fingers toying at the rim of Morris’ hole, “fuck, babe. I wanna be inside you so bad.”

“Sh-shut up,” was all Morris managed. He wasn’t sure what he was even trying to do anymore beyond bury himself in the heavenly feeling of being surrounded by Charle’s chest and arms, his hands grasping onto Charle’s shoulders as he mouthed helplessly against a pec.

Soon enough he got one of Charle’s nipples into his mouth, and he hummed in satisfaction as the man under him bucked and squirmed. Strangely enough, he seemed to have taken Morris’ words to heart, staying completely silent beyond a few breathless pants and moans. 

Every time Morris leaned in closer to suck or bite on the areola, he was awarded with a firm squeeze to one ass cheek. He sighed, eyelids fluttering shut as he settled into the strangely peaceful rhythm of sucking, kissing, and nibbling. Rocking his body against Charle’s, his erection drooling and smearing pre-cum between them, in time to the broad hand running up and down his back, occasionally stopping to pinch and squeeze at his ass…

Hang on, hand… singular?

Just as Morris had even thought to find that questionable, there was the sound of a wet pop, and then something warm, blunt, and undeniably _wet_ was prodding incessantly at his hole.

“Wha-!” he ~~squeaked~~ yelped in shock, trying to twist himself to see just what the hell was going on back there.

“Toldja I could use my mouth for better things,” he turns back to see Charle grinning lazily, drool shining on his lips and trailing down his chin.

He meant to say something scathing, or sassy, probably scold the man — slap him, even — for just how _lewd_ he had been. Sucking on his own fingers, really? But then the (wet, lubed) finger industriously working away at his hole slipped past his rim, and every thought in Morris’ big, brilliant mind scuttled away to focus on the unexpected intrusion.

It felt… It was…

“You okay?” Charle’s voice was a distant, low rumble that Morris more felt through their physical contact than heard with his ears. The finger inside him thrusted languidly, in and out, a slow, gentle, searching pace.

Morris let out a shaky breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, slumping slightly from how ramrod straight he’d been sitting (when had he sat up?). He stared at without really seeing his hands, splayed against Charle’s abs, his own cock still dark with arousal and leaking between them.

It felt… strange, uncomfortable but not painful. And the more his body relaxed, he found, the less uncomfortable it became. It was still difficult to think though, to focus on anything except the strangeness of it all. He’d never really considered such an act in detail, never done anything like this before, a glaring gap in his knowledge base (most ‘positive social interaction’ fell under this category, really), but wasn’t this supposed to be pleas-

_“AH!”_

“Aha, found it~”

Morris couldn’t help it, he collapsed forward again. He couldn’t stop the stream of breathless cries spilling from his lips as the finger inside him picked up pace, unerringly jamming against that one spot (his prostate? Must be,) inside him that made him see stars over and over.

“Ah, ah! Charle, wait- I’m… Hah, ah! I’m gonna…!” He yelped, beating against the other’s chest frantically as the other kept adding more and more fingers into him, spreading him and stretching his hole, until he was finger-fucking him with practically his entire fist. He gasped, choking on a sob as Charle struck him against that one spot once more, his hand reaching down between them to grab at his own throbbing dick.

“I can’t… I can’t- ah! Ch-Charle…!”

“It’s okay, babe,” he crooned, his own voice tinged around the edges with breathlessness, “just let go.”

He looked up, saw the warmth in those amber eyes, and did just that.

When the blinding white cleared, he found himself on his back, covered in something solid and warm as he was soothingly rocked. He blinked, looking up to see Charle smiling down at him, cheeks flushed and sweat beading lightly on his brow. He was saying something, but Morris’ ears were still ringing from the intensity of his orgasm, and could do nothing in response but reach up to bring Charle’s face closer for a kiss.

And god, did it feel so, so good. Charle’s tongue, pushing firmly against his own inside his mouth, their breaths mingling, hot and heavy. Charle’s low groans and grunts of exertion as they mixed with Morris’ own appreciative moans. His hands still trailing, warm and comforting, over his skin, pulling them impossibly closer, even though they were already joined in the closest way possible…

Oh.

“Charle,” Morris broke from the kiss to moan, as he felt the older man’s cock brush that spot inside him. It should’ve been way too much, he had just come after all, but already he could feel his excitement and his desire mounting once more, the muscles in his sphincter clenching.

“Holy shit,” Charle gasped over him, leaning down to bite and mark his neck again. What is it with this man and his neck anyway? “You feel so amazing. It feels.. _ungh_ ... so fucking good inside you. You’re so… _hah…_ so gorgeous.”

“You feel - _oh, ah! -_ y’feel good… inside me too,” he breathed, because damn it, it was true.

“It’s not… _hm_ … not too much?” Trust Charle to be a gentleman, even in this.

Morris laughed, a glint entering his eye. With one smooth movement, he grabbed Charle — caught completely off-guard, spinning them over to reverse their positions so that he was back on top.

“Nah,” he grinned, supporting himself with his fingers against Charle’s abs as he lifted his hips till Charle’s cock was nearly out, then dropped them sharply back down, drawing a strangled, sobbing moan from the silver-haired man, “in fact, it’s too little.”

“Fuck, that’s hot,” Charle murmured, blown pupils subsuming the amber-gold of his eyes, cock twitching in the confines of Morris’ heat.

So encouraged, Morris began to bounce, leaning more and more of his weight onto his arms for better leverage as he picked up the pace. He thighs burned from the effort of riding the gorgeous man underneath him, even with Charle’s hands on his waist helping him when he faltered. But the immense pleasure, the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin with the accompanying chorus of their moans echoing throughout the bedroom kept him going, feverishly chasing that peak once more.

“I’m close,” he whispered, his legs shaking and a cry punched from his lungs as his hips dropped down again, “Charle, Charle, I’m - ah - I’m so close, I…!”

“Me too,” he hissed through grit teeth, thick fingers bruising in their grip on Morris’ slender waist, long silver hair spilt in disarray on the pillow, “fuck, _ah fuck,_ I’m gonna-”

He came with a long cry, spilling hot and thick into Morris. Morris bounced on his throbbing cock, once, twice more, before he was following Charle down, whimpering as his second orgasm of the night wracked his body, white spattering all over their chests.

Morris dropped, strength sapped from his limbs as blissful lethargy set in heavy and syrupy sweet. Vaguely, some corner of his mind recognised that he was lying in a puddle of his own spend, smearing sticky and gross between their chests, and that Charle’s softened cock had slipped from his ass. He hardly cared, instead enjoying the sound of Charle’s breathing evening out, the pleased sighs rumbling down his chest and through Morris’ skull, the calming of his racing heart.

He could die happy here, he thought, surrounded in the warmth and comfort of Charle’s arms, with nothing else in the world to bother them in their closeness, this one moment of peace and bliss-

“Th’was good,” Charle slurred, eyes slipping closed and a dopey smile stretched on his lips, “thanks, ‘verett.”

Morris froze.

“What?”

But he was already asleep, probably lulled down not just by the satisfaction of sex, but also the alcohol-

Morris pushed himself up, staring at Charle’s peacefully sleeping face, still flushed and wine-drunk.

_No._

He peeled his body off, wincing at the stickiness of the drying sweat and cum on their naked skin. The mess of the sheets, their scattered clothes, the heavy stink of sex in the close air.

_No._

He struggled to untangle his leaden limbs from the sheets, staggering into the adjacent bathroom, desperately ignoring the hot… _thing_ trickling down the inside of his thigh like a searing brand of shame.

_No._

Fumbling with the light switch, he stood bare foot on the cold linoleum, struggling to reclaim his bearings. By all rights, all the professors’ dorm rooms had the same basic layouts, but they were perfectly free to personalise it in any way they saw fit. This bathroom… it was everything like his own yet nothing like it at all. He stared unblinkingly at the bright green rug by the tub, and its strange, foreign greenness seemed to stare back, accusingly.

_You’re not supposed to be here._

He shook as he stepped into the shower, didn’t dare touch the bottles of soap or shampoo. He shook as he reached a hand back and did his best to scoop the stain out from inside him. He shook as he stepped out, dripping wet as he fumbled blindly around for a towel.

_Just a little lie, you’re good at lying._

He found a small face towel, and gave up on drying himself, instead hastily stepping into his trousers to keep from dripping all over Charle’s bedroom. He wet the towel, using it to methodically wipe every bit of evidence of their coupling from Charle’s skin. That done, he rinsed the towel — but not thoroughly, just enough to muddy his scent — then dropped it on the floor next to Charle’s bed, underneath where Charle’s hand was carelessly splayed over the edge.

_It’s not wrong if no one finds out._

He gathered up his clothes, hastily throwing on his coat without bothering with his shirt, and stole out the door. Walking as swiftly as he dared to without making too much noise down the deathly silent halls, cold and dark despite the ever-lit runic lamps lining it. He made it into his own room in short order, clicking the door firmly shut behind him. No one saw him.

_It doesn’t matter if no one knows._

The wetness of his clothes clung to him, the cotton and wool soaking through. A stiff breeze whistled through a window he’d left ajar, and he shook, trembling in the dampness. It whipped at his cheeks, biting at his chest, chilled his knees through his sodden trousers. If he weren’t sober before, he’s certainly sober now.

_You’ve been sober the whole time._

(You’d think he’d find it easy to ignore the chill, the cold being so familiar and intimate a friend.)

Perhaps he’d grown complacent, through the long years in these sheltered walls, because he shook and trembled like an autumn leaf as he stripped his clothes off again, tossing them into his laundry basket.

_What have I done?_

Perhaps he’d grown complacent, surrounded by the constant lively chatter of a hundred students and teachers day in and day out, because the quiet solitude of his room echoed around him as he went about preparing himself for bed, thundering with every racing beat of his heart.

_What have I done?_

Perhaps he’d grown complacent, with the warm smile and kind words of Charle Ceres, because he raised his head to the mirror and felt bile race up his throat when he saw no one but a monster.

_What have I done?_

Eyes blurring with tears, he emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet.

* * *

Charle Ceres is a morning person, a strange and rather alarming anomaly that Morris has simply added to the long list of things that made Charle Ceres an overall bewildering human being.

This morning, however, finds Charle somewhat subdued. At Morris’ raised eyebrow, he simply offers a wince and a half shrug.

“Hangover.”

Ah, understandable.

“You too?” he asks, gesturing to the red smudges around and the purpling bags under Morris’ eyes.

“Yes,” Morris lies easily.

They settle down to work together, in silence, as always. And Morris tries, he truly, dearly does, to find once more the beauty and the rhythm in the dance of runework. But across him, Charle stares at him, at the scarf he has wrapped around his neck (too exposed, far too exposed, collared now by more than a thin strip of leather), then stands, making his way over to the open window and shutting it. He returns to his seat with an offer of a tiny smile. Morris doesn’t bother thanking him.

It gets hotter, with the scarf, but he can’t risk removing it, even if the discomfort interferes with his already scattered thinking. At some point, Charle leaves and returns with tea. His cup sits untouched at the corner of his workspace.

Still the man says nothing of their night together, makes no indication toward even the slightest hint of bashfulness at their actions, not a hint of change in his regard for Morris’ person.

Did he despise him now, for so callously using him when he was… Or, could it be that he’d enjoyed it? Was it possible that he’d liked having Morris as a partner? Briefly Morris considers asking how much the other remembers of last night, but just as swiftly dismisses the idea.

When maintaining a lie, wait for your opponent to play their cards first, don’t play yours unless you absolutely must.

Morris wonders vaguely, as he redraws the same runic circle wrong for the eighth time in a row, if his hand has become full to spilling. He sighs, crushing the paper into a ball and starting over.

“Another dead end, huh?” Charle says, his smile sympathetic.

“Yeah.”

Morris has had very many of those, after all, in his damnable yearning for the impossible.


End file.
